Context

Our client, a South African underground platinum mine, was underperforming against mining production targets. Trackless Mobile Machinery (TMM) availability, a priority improvement lever, was low at 69%, with ~ 8% points lost to ‘waiting for spares’.

There was a lack of understanding of the issues driving the ‘waiting for spares’ delays and, despite the underperformance, inadequate demand for improvement within the supply chain team.

Partners in Performance was engaged to firstly identify and then address the priority issues causing the underperformance.

Tangible impact

‘Waiting for spares’ delay reduced by 45% in eight weeks

Hrs/day lost by the TMM fleet due to ‘waiting for spares’

• 3.6% pt. TMM availability gain enabling ~5% production improvement driven from a 45% reduction in ‘waiting for spares’ delay in eight weeks
• Stock accuracy up from 2% to 99% on the top 80% of SKUs
• Binning and labelling compliance up from 57% to 99%
• 50% reduction in artisan queuing time at the stores
• Effective mechanisms to hold individuals to account
• Prioritised ideas pipeline to drive further improvement
• Capability building programme to upskill the department

Our approach

• Conducted a diagnostic to identify pain points, main opportunities and priority areas of focus, reviewing each area of our Inbound Mining Supply Chain framework

• Installed supply chain Wiring to create a demand for improvement by holding individuals to account:

– Defined the input drivers for ‘waiting for spares’ e.g. number of late orders, % stock accuracy

– Assigned these KPIs to individuals

– Implemented and coached Results Action Reviews (RARs) across four levels from CFO down to front line management

– Implemented and coached a weekly supply chain and engineering planning meeting to align on spares and rotables priorities

– Implemented and coached a morning stand-up supported by a ‘waiting for spares’ dashboard to review KPIs and drive action completion daily

• Implemented short interval control (SPIN) campaigns for quick wins on priority behaviour related KPIs e.g. binning and labelling accuracy
• Identified and prioritised improvement ideas with the supply chain team and established an ideas pipeline management process to drive continuous improvement
• Identified the priority capability gaps and agreed a programme to address them